The hunting party has made all of the necessary preparations and plans. Camping, food, change of clothes, ammunition. You rise early, well before the sun. You eat breakfast while going over the logistics . . . who will drive the deer (elk, moose, boar, etc. . . . ) to you who will be sitting on the ridge, waiting to take the shot. With breakfast and plans in place, you leave to carry out this carefully laid plan for the hunt. Everything is going well. You climb to your spotting post and wait. Finally, your target is there. You raise your rifle (or bow), take aim, squeeze off a shot and watch your game falter. This is where the real hunt begins and time is of the essence. You must find the deer, make sure that there is no suffering and save the meat.
You leave your shooting post, climb down the hill and go right to the spot you are sure the game was standing when you shot it. You made notes about what to look for. The tall lodge pole pine. The three Aspens on the right of the big rock. You are sure this is the spot. You search and search for a blood tail, any sign. The rest of the hunting party finds you and join in the search. You all spread out. After many crucial hours searching, you have to call it a night. The hunting party returns to camp, worries about the animal being in pain, and all get a restless nights sleep, only to rise in the morning and head back out to search again.
The plan is, you will go back to the ridge where you shot from and guide the rest of the hunting party in the search. After another day of hunting, someone finally finds the blood trail. You follow this trail, which leads you several hundred yards to the fallen deer, a healthy four (4) point. Its been a warm Autumn. After this many hours dead, in the sun, the meat is already rotten. The animal is wasted because it took so long to locate, and signs there show a great deal of suffering before the animal finally died.
OR;
It snows. HARD. All night. You call off the search because there is too much snow to be hiking around looking for a fallen animal.
OR;
You are so excited to have finally been able to shoot at anything, you take off down the hill before remembering to find your identifying markers and you realized that you have no idea where to begin looking.
A search on the internet will take you to any number of articles on just how to track your game, once shot. The suggestions are widely subjective, and center on being able to identify the exact spot your game was standing when it was shot. In many situations, there is simply a lack of distinct identifying markers.